Atlanta mayor lays out plan to fix city infrastructure following days or water main breaks, repairs

ATLANTA — The mayor of Atlanta is pledging that the city of Atlanta will do a better job if faced with another water main crisis in the future.

Just two hours after crews finished the repair job at West Peachtree and 11th streets, and turned the water back on to midtown, Mayor Andre Dickens was talking about how the city will move forward.

That includes the Army Corps of Engineers, a special blue-ribbon panel led by Atlanta’s former “sewer mayor” and a $1 billion+ ask from the federal government.

“We’re happy to be on the other side of this,” Dickens said during a morning news conference Wednesday.

Channel 2′s Richard Elliot was there as Dickens doled out praise to the work crews who toiled day and night to repair not only the midtown water break but also those who worked to fix the break in Vine City that led to water outages for tens of thousands of people.

But now, he has to face what’s to come.

Much of Atlanta’s water infrastructure – pipes -- date back to the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and they’re showing their age.

RELATED STORIES:

• Water main break repairs complete in midtown Atlanta, service restored across the city
• Water main break repairs almost complete, service should be restored Wednesday morning
• Boil water advisory lifted for parts of metro Atlanta, remains in place for others

“While I say that we are frustrated, that understand, we also know that we are going to go at this proactively to start moving in the right direction, to replace as much of the broken or older infrastructure that we have,” Dickens said.

Dickens enlisted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a full assessment of the city’s water infrastructure and to make recommendations on how to fix it.

He’s standing up a blue-ribbon panel led by former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, self-dubbed as Atlanta’s “sewer mayor” for her attention to infrastructure nearly 20 years ago. They’ll turn the recommendations into policy.

Dickens said they’ll go straight to the federal government for the money to do all this -- something he realizes won’t be cheap.

“I will be asking the feds for more money, lots more money. I want us to be the example of solving it, all of it, and that’s going to be a number in the b’s, billions. It’s not going to be a small number,” Dickens said.

For now, the water is back on in midtown. The boil water advisory could be lifted as soon as early Thursday morning.

RELATED NEWS:

Atlanta leaders say water main break repairs almost complete

©2024 Cox Media Group